When I saw David Carradine was in this T&A horror comedy, I was intrigued. Then there are animated monsters. Okay you have more of my attention. The simple plot has four sexy young girls given a job to clean a spooky house overnight. The film gives you exactly what you expect. But every piece of the standard plot is a disaster.
Gideon Fisk (Carradine, KILL BILL) is a mysterious man who has a bootleg version of the Necronomicon from the EVIL DEAD series. He hangs himself. Then the new owner of the house, Burt (Dick Miller, GREMLINS), hires four sexy young girls to clean up the same house. Megan (Monique Gabrielle, THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING) is the bookish redhead who has an uneven boob job that she is too shy to show off in front of the other girls. Roxanne (Madison Stone, BARDOT) on the other hand is the raven-haired slut of the group who likes to show off the striptease that landed her Biff (Don Dowe, BRUCE ALMIGHTY). Terry (Suzanne Ager, INNER SANCTUM) is the redheaded wisecracking leader and Jan (Barbara Dare aka Stacey Nix) is her blonde sidekick. Then all of a sudden Fisk returns from the dead to give the girls the Necronomicon ripoff and they accidentally unleash a cartoon demon that rapes and possesses Roxanne.
The plot is complete nonsense. The girls are supposed to clean the house, but never clean a thing. They seem more interested in getting into their underwear and nighties. The acting of four women is clearly to the level of their porn backgrounds. And from time to time Arte Johnson (THE LOVE BOAT) pops up and acts creepy as the neighbor Mr. Hinchlow. One of the classically bad lines comes when Biff arrives and sees Roxanne covered in blood. “What’s this sticky red lotion you have on?” Stinko!
If the corny dialogue and awful acting wasn’t hilarious enough, the best laughs come from the ineptitude of writer/director Fred Olen Ray. He writes a script where his spooky house is supposed to have a basement and then clearly films in California trying to make a garage look like a basement. In one scene Roxanne struggles to pop the cork on a bottle of champagne. The only problem is it’s a screw top and yet Ray has Stone struggle like she’s trying to pop a cork. Let’s not even get into how bad the animation is. Let’s just say Tex Avery’s Wolf should sue. And for a film called EVIL TOONS, there are only two scenes with the horny rapist leftover from COOL WORLD.
The film is equally unintentional laughs and “its so bad comedy, it makes you laugh anyways.” In one scene Miller is watching an old horror film starring himself. At the end he goes “how come this guy never won an Academy Award.” Silliness, but stupid because it’s clearly Miller watching Miller, but Ray doesn’t even take the opportunity to make it about the Burt character. But what should I expect from a sexploitation horror flick? Character development is the least thing on Ray’s mind. But that also provides unintended laughs. Megan is supposed to be shy about her body, but then she feels her obviously fake boobs in front of a mirror. The girls are supposed to be friends, but they sure ditch each other when things get rough. And then the ending finds a way to make “it was all a dream” seem compelling.
I love good schlock and this is good schlock. David Carradine walks in and eats the spooky house set for lunch. The four porn actresses deliver their lines like there is sexual innuendo to them even when there isn’t. Ray directs like he has to finish the picture in a day and a half and doesn’t have time for anything other than the boob shots. It’s equal parts Ed Wood and Russ Meyers and bad Ralph Bashki to give it a hook.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
